What do you call your children's genitalia?

by Rachel Mosteller (Subscribe to Rachel Mosteller's posts) Jun 4th 2006 2:04PM

Somewhere along the way in the great big world of parenting, my husband and I had to have "the discussion." What discussion, you ask?

What to call our children's' genitals.

Although I use both "penis" and "vagina" when talking to my children about their bits, I'm still more of a nickname type of person myself. Nicknames are fun! Nicknames are silly! Nicknames are great when describing genitalia!

I found a website tonight and this post had me laughing. The son discovered that he had a "wee" between his legs. The Mom, Heidi, was wondering what other people called their bits.

So, help Heidi out. What do you (or your children) call their bits? In this house, we have "girl bits" and "boy parts." Do you stick with the technical terms or so you have a little more fun with the naming?

Comments (32)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Karen Walrond 6-04-2006 @ 7:37AM

With all due respect to Greek musicians, in our house, our daughter Alex has a "yanni" and a "bum-bum."

"Bum-bum" is a pretty standard Trini-ism -- all children describe their bottoms as "bum-bums" or "bumsies." "Yanni" is actually a term I heard an adult woman use once, and I laughed my bum-bum off. So it stuck.

Hysterical topic.

bluepaintred 6-04-2006 @ 2:47PM

ok i have all boys so no girl nick names for me. when our oldes was little we had no AC and he would run round nekked ( i mean little little people under two) we would scream runnnnn! nekie baby! He started calling his penis a "nekie" ( nay key) he taught that to our middle child. by the time our lates ( and last ) baby hit the scene that older ones were too big to bathe with him and what not, and he has recently come up with the age old " pee pee" i think it is from when we say " do you have to pee pee?" we are in the middle of unsuccessfully potty training LOL

Valerie R. 6-04-2006 @ 2:49PM

My nephew calls his "Bit" a Tail. i laughed my butt off.... outside of His hearing range, of course! lol.

thordora 6-04-2006 @ 2:49PM

I'm boring. We stick to the technical terms. Which meant I had to say anus more times in one sentence about a week ago than I think I've ever said it in my life.

My parents never called them anything, except "Privates". Never liked that.

The yanni thing is funny however..

mckenna 6-04-2006 @ 2:52PM

I'm sure my son's confused. My husband calls it a diddle. My mother calls it a pee-PACH-o (not sure how you would spell that...). I tend to call it a geeker. I guess we'll have to pick a name soon and stick with it as the boy's learning words now. Seeing as I'm the only girl in the house, we don't talk about the female part much.

ann adams 6-04-2006 @ 3:08PM

I'm almost as boring as Thordora. I use the correct terms but I don't make a big deal out of what the girls say unless they've picked up something hateful from their peers.

They can't seem to get some of the words out of their mouths without a case of the giggles so they revert to the familiar.

I figure if they hear the terminology from me often enough, they'll pick it up eventually. At least they're hearing facts.

Kate 6-04-2006 @ 3:29PM

I had good intentions about using the "correct" technical terms, but had a hard time remembering. We use the same words that my parents did - bottom, vagina, and penis. And all together they make "private parts". Pretty boring.

paul 6-04-2006 @ 3:31PM

Karen

What you probably heard was "yoni" (male: lingam) which I gather has sanskrit roots.

Michelle 6-04-2006 @ 3:32PM

Okay, I have one of each and we use the technical terms in my house. My mom is an RN and growing up she would ALWAYS use the correct terminology. I mean, c'mon, once when I was about 4, we were watching, I think Diff'rent Strokes and they did a show about sexual abuse. I asked my mother a question and she got out her nursing school anatomy and physiology text book to explain the answer to me.

That said, my 3 year old, who has an amazing vocabulary, recently had to have a frenuectomy (a little cut on the under side of her tongue, because her tongue was connected all the way to the tip, which inhibited her pronunciation of certain words) One day, she was in the bathroom as her daddy got out of the shower and she asked him why he had a peanut. Of course, she meant penis. She also pronounces vagina as *bagina* At least she *knows* the correct words.

My ex-husband and his parents, who were in their 50s used to call them pee-pees and poo-poos. UGH! Thank goodness I didn't have children with that moron!

Michelle 6-04-2006 @ 3:49PM

oops, for those of you who know and care any differently, I meant frenulectomy.

tulip 6-04-2006 @ 5:17PM

With our daughter we say heinie and 'ginie. As in rhymes heinie. (hi-nee) I am also using the correct terms but for some reason (what is up with men anyway?) my husband is uncomfortable with those.

Eva 6-04-2006 @ 6:07PM

My husband's a doctor so we've always used the correct medical terminology with my stepson. Though it is rather hilarious to hear him say "Make sure to clean around your scrotum." or "You need to empty your bladder before naptime." But that's just par for the course at our house.

Erika 6-04-2006 @ 6:10PM

I brought my newborn son home from the hospital and at the first diaper change my daughter (then about 3.5) looked in awe and asked what "that" was... I told her very matter-of-factly that it was his penis. She said, "I don't have a PONIS because I'm a girl." So in our family boys have ponises, and I have to admit, it's a lot more fun to say than "penis!" My girl formerly had a "buh-buh" but now it's a "front bottom" or a "back bottom" (her choice). She knows it's also called a vagina, though I struggle with that myself because it's not truly the vagina you see down there, it's the labia, etc.

I love nicknames too. I think they're absolutely fine as long as your kids know the real terminology and realize that they're just substituting words.

Sadie 6-04-2006 @ 6:35PM

We use "vulva" for the girls (since that's the correct term for the outer bits) and "penis/scrotum/testicles" for the boys. I really dislike it when people use terms like cookies and yohoos and such. It's fine to have cutesy names when they're older, but you really need to start out from the beginning with making sure that they know the proper words.... just ask any social worker.

roolalenska 6-04-2006 @ 8:08PM

In our house we say pumpie (pronounced poompie) - it is the Norwegian equivalent of tushie and my 3 year old daughter gets a lot of mileage out of it. I think that it is pretty cute as well. We try to call her vagina a vagina but often I find myself calling it a pee-pee. My dad was one of those sticklers for the correct terminology for everything. I always found it kind of embarrasing when he asked us to get out of the one bathroom in our apartment because he had to defecate.

We also use another Norwegian word that I prefer to the English version - instead of snot or buggers we call it bussimon.

Matthew Miller 6-04-2006 @ 9:25PM

Err, "yanni" is probably actually "yoni", from Sanskrit. See http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=yoni

Michele W 6-04-2006 @ 10:15PM

I can't seem to use the correct words with my son yet so we have always called his a peepers and when he noticed that mommys was differnt, I just told him that boys have a peepers and girls have a peeps.

Heather 6-04-2006 @ 10:30PM

I have always used technical terms for safety reasons. Funny story, my middle son was being potty trained through the night and we lived in Texas so the boys slept in their briefs and my husband and I sleep in the nude. Well, my middle son was with me in a crowded area waiting for his big brother to get out of kindergarten and I was praising him for waking up in dry underwear. I said to him "Yay Christopher, you slept in big boy underwear just like your big brother Austin!" and Christopher shouts excitedly "I sleep in underwear, and DADDY SLEEPS IN PENIS!" I could have crawled into the sidewalk!

Ethel 6-04-2006 @ 11:46PM

Thank you Sadie for the right word for the outer genitalia for girls! Vagina did not seem right when I was thinking about that you really need to, well, inspect to see the vagina.

In our house it is penis, bottom, anus, scrotum/testicles, nipples, and now vulva too. Why have a euphenism? It really just confuses kids - like when I was in 1st grade and had to urinate and asked if I could "go tin tin", I almost urinated in my pants before I realized that my cousins called it "potty". What happens later in life is adults use the same stupid names for genitalia and then giggle if you call it properly. Do we need to be reproducing if we can't name our body parts?